Paris, 29th August, 17**.
LETTER THE FORTY-SEVENTH
THE VICOMTE DE VALMONT TO THE MARQUISE DE MERTEUIL
To-day again I shall not see you, my lovely friend, and here are my reasons, which I beg you to meet with indulgence.
Instead of returning here directly, I stopped with the Comtesse de ***, whose château lay almost upon my road, and of whom I asked a dinner. I did not reach Paris until about seven o’clock, and I alighted at the Opera, where I hoped to find you.
The Opera over, I went to see my fair friends of the green-room; I found there my whilom Émilie, surrounded by a numerous court, women as well as men, to whom she was offering a supper that very evening at P——. I had no sooner entered this assemblage than I was invited to the supper by acclamation. I also received one from a little fat and stumpy person, who stammered his invitation to me in the French of Holland, and whom I recognized as the true hero of the fête. I accepted.
I learned upon my way that the house whither we were going was the price agreed upon for Émilie’s favours towards this grotesque figure, and that this supper was a veritable wedding-breakfast. The little man could not contain himself for joy, in expectation of the pleasure which awaited him; he seemed to me so satisfied with the prospect that he gave me a longing to disturb it; which was, effectually, what I did.
The only difficulty I found was that of persuading Émilie, who was rendered somewhat scrupulous by the burgomaster’s wealth. She agreed, however, after raising some objections, to the plan which I suggested of filling this little beer-barrel with wine, and so putting him hors de combat for the rest of the night.
The sublime idea which we had formed of a Dutch toper caused us to employ all available means. We succeeded so well that, at dessert, he was already without the strength to lift his glass: but the helpful Émilie and myself vied with one another in filling him up. Finally, he fell beneath the table, in so drunken a state, that it ought to last for at least a week. We then decided to send him back to Paris; and, as he had not kept his carriage, I had him carried into mine, and remained in his stead. I thereupon received the congratulations of the company, which soon afterwards retired, and left me in possession of the field. This gaiety, and perhaps my long rustication, made Émilie seem so desirable to me that I promised to stay with her until the Dutchman’s resurrection.
This complaisance on my part is the price of that which she has just shown me, that of serving me for a desk upon which to write to my fair puritan, to whom I found it amusing to send a letter written in the bed, and almost in the arms, of a wench, a letter interrupted even to complete an infidelity, in which I send her an exact account of my position and my conduct. Émilie, who has read the epistle, laughed like a mad girl over it, and I hope that you will laugh as well.
